Region

BEIRUT — Syrian troops have regained control of villages near a military airbase in the central province of Hama, pushing back rebel fighters in the area, a monitoring group said Tuesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime troops and pro-regime militiamen had made the advances in the past few days after months of fighting with rebel groups in the area.

Regime forces pushed back rebels "who were threatening the strategic Hama military airport, from which the regime launches air raids on several areas," the observatory director, Rami Abdel Rahman, said.

The advances came after the launch of an operation reportedly led by Suhail Al Hassan, the Syrian officer notorious for a brutal campaign of barrel bombing in Aleppo as well as operations in the northern province that have seen regime forces regain large stretches of territory.

Abdel Rahman said government troops were expected to continue their advance in the western part of Hama province by moving towards Halfaya, a stronghold of the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front.

The regime has already begun bombing raids on the area, including dropping two explosive-packed barrel bombs on Tuesday, the observatory said.

In southern Quneitra province, meanwhile, where rebel forces seized the Syrian side of a crossing with Israeli-occupied territory last week, fighting continued between rebels and regime forces.

The observatory said rebels had seized territory between Quneitra and Daraa province, and that the fighting in the area had prompted residents of surrounding villages to flee.

Around the capital Damascus, meanwhile, state news agency SANA reported at least five people killed Tuesday in mortar fire on the suburbs of Jaramana and neighbouring Kashkul.

The agency blamed "terrorists" for the fire, the term used by the government for all those seeking to oust President Bashar Assad.

Regime forces were also continuing operations in the areas of Dakhaniyeh, on the highway leading south from Damascus to Daraa, a security source said.

“The area has been surrounded and a number of armed men present have been eliminated in the course of the operation,” the source said.

Operations were also ongoing in the eastern Damascus district of Jobar, which the regime is trying to wrest from rebel control.

Regime planes have carried out a fierce aerial campaign on the area, which they consider a key gateway to the neighbouring opposition stronghold of Eastern Ghouta.

“The decision has been taken to continue operations until the return of security and stability to Jobar,” the security source said.

“This is a step towards cleaning up in Eastern Ghouta.”

BAGHDAD — Iraq's new Cabinet line-up is not a major change and much more is needed to address grievances that contributed to the rise of brutal jihadists who seized swathes of the country, experts say.

Having the support of Iraq's various religious and ethnic communities, especially members of its alienated Sunni Arab minority, is essential to the government's fight to regain ground lost to a sweeping offensive led by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group.

But while Iraq has faced heavy international pressure, including from the United States and United Nations, to do this through forming a broader-based government, other factors are ultimately more important, experts say.

MPs voted Monday to approve 26 Cabinet-level nominees, ushering in Haider Al Abadi's term as premier.

But while US Secretary of State John Kerry praised the "new and inclusive" government as a "major milestone", the key interior and defence portfolios remain unfilled and the Cabinet has not undergone major changes.

The proportion of posts given to members of the Shiite majority and the Sunni Arab and Kurdish minorities is largely the same as the previous government, and almost a third of the new ministers and deputy premiers held such posts before.

"In terms of the sectarian division of the government, it's actually, if you're going to take it strictly by numbers, less inclusive," said Fanar Haddad, a research fellow at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore.

And Kirk Sowell, the publisher of the Inside Iraqi Politics newsletter, said the new Cabinet “is not a radical change”.

Both Sowell and Haddad said the focus on government composition is in any case misplaced.

“The last government was inclusive — this is meaningless,” said Sowell. “It’s really a matter of policy.”

‘Inclusivity meaningless’ 

Despite being broad-based, the previous government headed by Nouri Al Maliki alienated Sunnis and was also frequently at odds with the country’s autonomous Kurdish region.

“Inclusivity seems to be measured by the number of positions doled out to Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds, which of course doesn’t mean anything,” said Haddad.

“What really matters is the power that comes with that position,” he said. “That, we’re not going to know for a while, until the government actually starts operating.”

How the government deals with the provinces where fighting is taking place, the Shiite militias that are bolstering security forces, and the Kurdish region will all be key, he said.

Abadi asked for a week to fill posts including the interior and defence ministries, and who obtains them will likely play a key role in relations between the government and Sunni Arabs.

Former transport minister Hadi Al Ameri, who commands the powerful Shiite Badr militia, has been angling for one of the two posts.

If he “becomes interior minister, that basically puts an end to any kind of security power-sharing with Sunni Arabs”, Sowell said.

“It’s horrendous... he’s a militia leader and an Iranian proxy.”

Haddad agreed, saying: “Whatever benefits accrued from forming a new government, appointing Hadi Al Ameri as head of defence or interior, I think, would be a big blow to any hope of trying to bring a... critical mass of Sunnis back on board.”

And it will be difficult if not impossible for security forces to push back the militants without the support of the local populations in the predominantly-Sunni areas they hold — something at least partially contingent on their politicians’ relationship with the government.

Because Sunni politicians were alienated from the last government, “there was no cooperation between the citizen and the security forces in addressing the security situation”, said Issam Al Faili, professor of politics at Baghdad’s Mustansiriyah University.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel has illegally coerced almost 7,000 African migrants into returning to their home countries, where some face persecution, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

“Israel’s convoluted legal rules thwart Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers’ attempts to secure protection under Israeli and international law,” New York-based HRW said in a statement accompanying an 83-page report.

The authorities in Israel had “denied them access to fair and efficient asylum procedures, and used the resulting insecure legal status as a pretext to unlawfully detain or threaten to detain them indefinitely, coercing thousands into leaving”.

Human rights groups have strongly condemned Israel for its immigration policy and treatment of African asylum seekers, particularly over its Holot detention centre where illegal immigrants can be held for up to a year.

“Israeli officials say they want to make the lives of ‘infiltrators’ so miserable that they leave Israel, and then claim people are returning home of their own free will,” the report’s author Gerry Simpson wrote.

“International law is clear that when Israel threatens Eritreans and Sudanese with lifelong detention, they aren’t freely deciding to leave Israel and risk harm back home.”

Some of those returning to Sudan have faced “torture, arbitrary detention, and treason charges for setting foot in Israel”, the report said.

In response to the HRW report, a spokeswoman for Israel’s population and migration authority defended its policy as “proportionate” and said the numbers of those leaving voluntarily had increased threefold since 2013.

Israel defends ‘effective’ policy 

“Israel acts legally and in an appropriate and proportional manner in order to deal with the phenomenon of illegal infiltrators. The growth in number of those leaving Israel of their own will is three times higher in 2014 than in 2013. This proves the policy is effective,” the statement said.

The UN says there are some 53,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Israel, most of whom entered via the desert border with Egypt.

Of that number, some 36,000 come from Eritrea where the regime has been repeatedly accused of widespread human rights abuses. Another 14,000 are from conflict-torn Sudan.

In 2012, Israel launched a crackdown on what it said were 60,000 illegal African immigrants, rounding up and deporting 3,920 by the end of the year, and building a hi-tech fence along the border with Egypt.

Israel opened the Holot detention camp in the southern Negev desert last year as part of a crackdown on illegal immigrants, with the facility open by day but locked down at night.

Under legislation passed by parliament in December 2013, Israel can detain illegal immigrants for up to a year without trial. The law was slammed by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) which said Israel could be in breach of international law.

The law was the latest in a series of measures aimed at cracking down on the numbers of Africans entering the country illegally, which Israel says poses a threat to the state’s Jewish character.

Asylum seekers staged mass protests against Israel’s immigration in December and January, with thousands rallying in Tel Aviv outside embassies and the offices of the UNHCR.

UNITED NATIONS — UN envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura will begin his first visit to Damascus on Tuesday to try to kick-start peace talks that have twice foundered under the United Nations.

De Mistura will travel with Deputy Envoy Ramzy Ezzedine Ramzy for the first round of meetings with Syrian officials since taking up the mission this month, a UN statement said.

The Syrian Al Watan newspaper, which is close to the government, reported that the envoys will hold three days of talks on "prospects for a solution" to the conflict that has raged since March 2011.

While in Damascus, de Mistura will also meet representatives of opposition groups tolerated by the regime, Al Watan said.

It was not known whether a meeting with Assad was planned.

After the first visit to Syria, the envoy will travel in the region to speak with key players and to other capitals in October, said the UN statement.

Details of his travel plans were not released but it was expected that he would travel to Russia, Assad’s key ally.

The head of the tolerated National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, Hassan Abdel Azim, told AFP he planned to meet the UN envoy at a Damascus hotel on Thursday.

He said the delegation would call on de Mistura to organise “new negotiations in Geneva” between government and opposition representatives to achieve a “quick political solution”.

But it is unclear whether there is broad political will for a fresh round of peace talks after two rounds of negotiations ended in failure earlier this year.

De Mistura’s predecessor, veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, resigned in May after the failure of the talks in Switzerland in January and February.

He had spent two years in the position, which he assumed after former UN secretary general Kofi Annan stepped down following a six-month stint in the role.

A former Italian deputy foreign minister, who has served previously in Iraq and Afghanistan, de Mistura was appointed to the Syria job in July.

More than 180,000 people have been killed in Syria since March 2011, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

De Mistura is due to arrive in the Lebanese capital on Monday and travel to Damascus by road on Tuesday, according to European diplomats in Beirut.

Syria had in July welcomed de Mistura’s appointment and stressed that he should demonstrate “objectivity and integrity” in pursuing his Syria peace mission.

GAZA CITY — The war with Israel may be over, but now the fight is turning inward with bitter rivalry between Fateh and Hamas threatening to shatter a fragile Palestinian unity deal.

In the latest spat between the factions, President Mahmoud Abbas accused Hamas of running a "shadow government" in Gaza, prompting the Islamist movement to accuse him of trying to "destroy" the unity agreement they signed in April.

The deal ended seven years of rival Palestinian administrations — with Abbas' Fateh Party which dominates the Palestinian Authority, ruling the West Bank, and Hamas' own government ruling Gaza.

Under the deal, the two sides agreed on the formation of a national consensus government of technocrats which took office on June 2.

But after just over a month in office, everything was put on hold as Israel and Hamas fought a deadly 50-day war in and around Gaza.

Throughout the conflict, Hamas and Fateh put up a united front, working side-by-side in indirect truce talks with Israel in Cairo, which resulted in an open-ended ceasefire that took effect on August 26.

But any illusion of harmony has quickly evaporated.

"Hamas has taken us back to square one, to the days of division," a Fateh official based in Gaza told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

'War of words' 

Gaza-based political analyst Talal Awkel said: "We're now seeing a war of words and mutual accusations being exchanged between Fateh and Hamas."

The latest face-off has likely scuppered elections that were supposed to take place by the end of the year, under the terms of the April agreement.

In a statement last week, Fateh accused Hamas of placing 300 of its members in Gaza under house arrest during the seven-week conflict, and wounding dozens who dared challenge it.

It also accused the Islamist movement of "stealing" aid bound for ordinary people in Gaza in order to "distribute it to its supporters or sell it on the black market".

Hamas dismissed the statement as a smear campaign organised by a movement whose popularity in the West Bank has slumped since the war.

A recent opinion poll found that if a presidential election were held now, Hamas’ former premier Ismail Haniyeh would easily win, taking 61 per cent of the votes compared with 32 per cent for Abbas.

During the fighting, Hamas was seen as the only Palestinian force willing to stand up to Israel, squaring up to its military might and firing rockets on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Fateh, by comparison, has been increasingly associated with the West Bank forces who engage in security cooperation with Israel.

In order to redress the balance, Abbas is hoping to secure a UN Security Council resolution calling for an end to the Israeli occupation within three years.

In the likely event of a US veto, officials say Abbas will consider fast-tracking an application to become party to the International Criminal Court with a view to possible prosecution of Israel over its actions in Gaza and the West Bank.

But such a diplomatic initiative is unlikely to offset the political gains chalked up by Hamas during the war.

‘Shadow government’ 

“After the victory in Gaza, the forces of the Palestinian Authority must change their attitude and come back into the arms of their people, instead of the arms of the occupation,” Hamas said last week.

And it denounced a ban on demonstrations and a wave of arrests in the West Bank, that has seen hundreds of its members detained.

The Gaza war was a chance for Hamas to show through its military prowess that it was still relevant, Awkel said, following charges it had signed the reconciliation deal “from a position of weakness”.

In the months leading up to the unity deal, Hamas was so broke that it could not even pay its own 45,000 employees.

Israel’s eight-year blockade of the territory, compounded by an Egyptian lockdown on its southern border, has sparked a major economic crisis.

A dispute over who should pay Hamas employees after Haniyeh’s government stood down in June proved to be the first crack in the unity deal.

Fights broke out at banks after the Palestinian Authority’s Gaza-based staff were paid but Hamas employees were not.

BAGHDAD — Iraq's parliament officially named Haider Al Abadi the country's new prime minister late Monday and approved most of the candidates put forward for his Cabinet amid mounting pressure to form an inclusive government that can collectively cap the advance of Sunni militants.

Lawmakers approved all of the candidates proposed for the new government, with the exception of a few posts, namely the defence and interior ministers. Abadi requested an additional week to name them.

Outgoing prime minister Nouri Al Maliki, former prime minister Ayad Allawi and former speaker of parliament osama Al Nujeifi were given the largely ceremonial posts of vice president. Kurdish politician and former foreign minister Hoshiyar Zebari was named as one of three deputy prime ministers.

Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister for the past eight years, relinquished the post to his nominated replacement August 14, ending a political deadlock that has plunged the country into uncertainty as it fights a Sunni militant insurgency. Maliki had been struggling for weeks to stay on for a third four-year term as prime minister amid an attempt by opponents to push him out, accusing him of monopolising power and pursuing a fiercely pro-Shiite agenda that has alienated the Sunni minority.

The US and other countries have been pushing for a more representative government that will ease anger among Sunnis, who felt marginalised by Maliki’s administration, helping fuel the dramatic sweep by the Islamic State (IS) extremist group over much of northern and western Iraq since June. The insurgency seized Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, and routed Iraq’s beleaguered armed forces. Thousands of people have been killed and more than 1.5 million have been displaced by the violence.

The extremist IS’ lightning advance across much of northern and western Iraq has driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes since June, and prompted the US to launch aid operations and airstrikes on August 8 as the militants threatened religious minorities and the largely autonomous Kurdish region.

Meanwhile, a suicide bomber struck a meeting of Sunni tribal fighters and Iraqi security troops on Monday, killing 16.

In Monday’s attack, the bomber drove an explosives-laden Humvee, apparently seized from the Iraqi military, into the gathering of a major Sunni tribe, the Jabour, and security forces in Duluiyah, some 80 kilometres north of Baghdad, a police officer said.

The explosion killed 16 and wounded at least 55 people, said the officer. A health official confirmed the casualties. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.

The town of Duluiyah fell briefly to the Sunni-dominated IS for few days in July but the Jabour tribesmen, who have aligned themselves with the Iraqi forces in the battle against the extremists, took it back.

After the suicide bombing, militants crossed a small river on Duluiyah’s outskirts and attacked the town, setting off fierce clashes.

In an online statement, the IS group claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack, saying two Saudi suicide bombers had targeted a police building and the gathering of Sunni militiamen. The authenticity of the statement could not be independently verified, but it was posted on a Twitter account frequently used by the militant group. Iraqi officials confirmed only one suicide attack.

The rampage by IS fighters has become Iraq’s worst crisis since the 2011 withdrawal of US troops. The militants’ summer offensive stunned Iraqi security forces and the military, which melted away and withdrew as IS fighters overran the northern cities of Mosul and Tikrit, as well as small towns and villages in their path.

Since then, Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias have been fighting against the militants with assistance from US air strikes, which contributed to some progress on the ground.

PARIS — France's Morocco-born education minister said on Monday she would take legal action after a false letter circulated on the Internet advising towns to offer a weekly Arabic language class.

The memo, complete with fake letterhead and signature, says an official from the education ministry will contact town halls shortly "to offer a voluntary hour per week to discover the Arabic language".

"I strongly advise you to give the green light to this activity which aims at breaking down the linguistic barriers that our children could encounter in the near future," reads the document signed in the name of the 36-year-old minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem.

The letter circulated widely on social networks in France, especially on Twitter, over the weekend.

"The education ministry files suit every time there is a case of identity fraud," said a spokesman for Vallaud-Belkacem.

The apparent forgers made a series of errors, notably with the description of the ministry itself, which they called the "Ministry for National Education", instead of the full title of "Ministry for National Education, Higher Education and Research".

In addition, it does not fall within the ministry's purview to offer extra-curricular activities, as these are organised at a local level, the ministry stressed.

Vallaud-Belkacem, a rising star in French politics who is the first woman to hold the office of education minister, has found herself the target of attacks from the far-right for her Moroccan roots.

Last week, far-right weekly Minute sparked a firestorm of controversy by describing her as a "Moroccan Muslim" and calling her appointment a "provocation".

While born in Morocco, Vallaud-Belkacem grew up in northern France and holds dual nationality. She has described herself as a "pure product of the Republic", an example of "happy integration" in a country which is home to the largest Muslim population in Europe.

TEHRAN — President Hassan Rouhani re-entered Iran's feverish debate on Internet censorship and gender segregation Sunday, saying neither policy was in the country's interest.

Rouhani was elected last year having pledged to be more moderate on social issues after his conservative predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's eight-year tenure, but he has encountered resistance.

Iran has a policy of filtering online content, which leaves popular websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube inaccessible without the use of illegal software.

Iranian authorities are also often accused of deliberately slowing down the Internet to make many websites harder to access.

The decision of Rouhani's government to approve faster 3G mobile Internet licences for two Iranian companies last month was seen as a first step towards making Internet access easier.

But he went further Sunday and said filtering was counter-productive.

"Some people think we can fix these problems by building walls, but when you create filters, they create proxies," Rouhani said, referring to proxy servers in other countries used by Iranians to circumvent national regulations.

"This [current policy] does not work. Force does not produce results," he added, in a speech broadcast live on state television.

The 3G licenses decision caused controversy with conservative clerics and officials arguing that video call functions on smartphones could expose youngsters to "immoral content".

Iran's ministry of telecommunications, technology and information later stated that video calling would not be available, despite such services — including FaceTime and Skype — being accessible on regular Internet connections.

Rouhani also hit out at the recent decision of Tehran's municipality to segregate staff by gender, a step implemented by the capital's mayor and hailed by conservatives.

Referring to those who "constantly say we must separate girls and boys", he said the Islamic republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, vehemently opposed universities adopting such a policy after the 1979 revolution.

However, Rouhani defended the veil and use of hijab, which women use to cover their hair and the loose robes they wear to cover their body, saying that it protects women.

Since Rouhani took office last August he has been accused of being too soft on hijab — in October he asked police to be moderate when enforcing the requirement.

Recent years have seen many women wear a thin veil that barely covers the hair and tight clothing or coats reaching mid-thigh instead of the long coat or chador, prompting MPs to write to Rouhani to demand tougher police action.

SANAA — Yemeni security forces briefly broke up a sit-in by Shiite rebels blocking the capital's airport road Sunday, only to have protesters return and keep the main highway closed after the first violence of a weekslong anti-government protest.

Using water cannons, bulldozers and tear gas, security forces charged at hundreds of protesters, who responded by throwing rocks, security officials said. One person died in the clashes, local hospital officials said, while dozens suffered from overexposure to tear gas.

At one point, protesters commandeered a bulldozer, a water cannon truck and an armored vehicle from the security forces, a witness said, adding that one protester snatched a machine gun from a soldier on an armored vehicle near the interior ministry, also on the airport road. Troops fired several warning shots in the air.

The Houthi rebels had earlier escalated their protests by moving to the road leading to the strategic airport, setting up tents near the communications ministry, and blocking traffic into Sanaa from the south and west.

They have been demanding that the government resign and reinstate fuel subsidies. Negotiations have failed to diffuse the standoff.

After clashes that lasted for nearly an hour, security forces pulled back to the nearby Interior Ministry, while protesters rebuilt some of the fallen tents. A security official said the road to the airport was once again blocked when protesters erected their tents again.

A senior government official said high-level talks between the rebels and the authorities were ongoing to calm the situation.

Houthis spokesman Mohammed Abdel Salam said in a statement that the attempts to disperse the sit-in will only deepen the crisis, describing it as a "foolish act".

Other sit-ins by the rebel supporters remained in place around Sanaa near several government ministries. Armed Houthis have moved from their stronghold in the northern Sadaa province to the outskirts of the capital in recent days to support them.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the media, while the witness did so for fear of retribution.

The Shiite rebels— camping out for nearly three weeks in Sanaa — have only added to the woes of the country, already struggling with one of the most dangerous offshoots of Al Qaeda. Fresh clashes Sunday prompted some families not to send their children to the first day of the new academic semester, for fears over their safety and in anticipation of further violence.

The Houthis have been calling for the government to resign and reinstate fuel subsidies. But when Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi dismissed his Cabinet on Tuesday and promised to appoint a new premier within a week in a move to offer concessions, the rebels' only escalated protests.

Fuel prices nearly doubled after the subsidy cuts, but the reaction on the street was limited when it was announced in July. Opponents say the Houthis are using the issue as a cover and are really just want to seize power. Hadi accuses them of doing the bidding of regional Shiite powerhouse Iran.

The Houthis waged a six-year insurgency that officially ended in 2010. The following year, the country was convulsed by an Arab Spring-inspired uprising that eventually forced longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down as part of a US-backed deal that gives him immunity from prosecution.

BEIRUT — Syrian rebels have made fresh advances near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in Quneitra province, where 26 troops and 17 rebels were killed in a battle on Saturday, a monitoring group said.

Fighting has raged in the province since August, when rebels and Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front took control of a border post.

“Rebels have since taken control of hills overlooking the border post, as well as several villages nearby, [after battles that killed] a large number of troops on both sides,” Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman said Sunday.

On Saturday, “the regime tried to take back the village of Msahra, but failed”, said Abdel Rahman, with the fighting leaving the 43 dead on both sides.

Over the course of Saturday’s fighting, the rebels also seized a string of new hilltops.

The observatory says the fighting around Quneitra has killed some 70 loyalists and dozens of rebels since the end of August.

For many months, rebels have sought to take full control of southern Damascus, Daraa province on the Jordan border, and Quneitra.

Elsewhere, regime warplanes carried out fresh strikes against areas under IS (IS) control in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor and the northern province of Raqa.

The air strike on Raqa killed two children, said the observatory, while the raids on two areas in Deir Ezzor killed at least 12 civilians, among them seven members of a tribe that had fought the IS.

The strikes come amid a stepped-up campaign by Assad’s regime targeting IS positions in northern and eastern Syria.

Activists say such air raids often kill many civilians as well as jihadists.

The Britain-based monitor and activists meanwhile reported several shells launched from rebel positions onto Abbasiyeen Square and other areas of central Damascus.

The shelling comes three weeks into a major battle in the eastern Damascus district of Jobar, which the regime is trying to wrest from rebel control.

On Sunday, the air force carried out 10 air strikes against rebel positions east of Damascus, the observatory said, reporting no casualties.

Syria’s war has killed more than 191,000 people since March 2011.